On Friday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released an actuarial report that analyzed the recently passed House version of Placebocare. Chris Frates at Politico.Com reviewed the report and pulled out some very interesting insights and conclusions. You can read Frates’ full review here.
Of the many items that Frates pulled out of the report, a few require some additional comment.
Pg. 6 – A public plan would cost 4 percent more than private plans because its utilization rules would not be as strict as the private sector.
I thought the whole purpose of Placebocare was to reduce the costs of health care? I guess we could look at total costs but with more people coming into the health care system there is no way that is going to happen. That only leaves a reduction on a per person basis. This report says that not only with the public option not be cheaper than private plans, it will actually be 4 percent more expensive. If that is the case, wouldn’t the answer be to use the existing, cheaper, private insurance and provide tax subsidies for those that need assistance?
Pg. 7 – 18 million people will remain uninsured and choose to pay the fines for not carrying insurance rather than buy coverage.
I’ve lost track of how many “uninsured” we have. The original number of 47 million went down the tubes with the anger over insuring illegal aliens. Let’s use a number of 35 million to be generous. If 18 million chose to pay fines, that means only 17 million additional will be insured. While the final tab is yet to be determined, it’s pretty safe to say that if it was fully implemented on day one, Placebocare would cost at least $1.3 trillion for the first 9 years. Finish the math equation and that comes to nearly $8,500 per person for health insurance. Folks, that’s PER PERSON. A family of four would be over $30,000 PER YEAR!
My family buys its own health insurance. We have a few health issues so we actually pay the highest rated premium that can be charged. Even with those issues, I can tell you that we don’t pay anywhere near $30K/year for all of our insurance AND out of pocket costs for a year. No wonder costs are increasing!
Pg 16 – “The additional demand for health services could be difficult to meet initially with existing health provider resources and could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.” Translation: A crush of newly insured patients could be a shock to the system.
Well No shit! I’ve laid out numerous times how there is no way to change the number of insured nearly overnight, and not experience a shortage of medical personell. What the report doesn’t address is that this won’t be an “initial” shortage. As reimbursements are reduced, work environments pinched, some medical personell will “go Galt.” I suspect that what we experience short term will actually be our experience for an extended period of time; it could be our permanent go forward experience.
The more information that comes out, the more it’s obvious that the promises of Placebocare expire quicker than President Obama’s campaign promises. That is to say, they never really existed.
